Modern motor vehicles often include one or more in-vehicle information systems that provide a wide variety of information and entertainment options to occupants in the vehicle. Common services that are provided by the in-vehicle information systems include, but are not limited to, vehicle state and diagnostic information, navigation applications, hands-free telephony, radio and music playback, and traffic condition alerts. In-vehicle information systems often include multiple input and output devices. For example, traditional buttons and control knobs that are used to operate radios and audio systems are commonly used in vehicle information systems. More recent forms of vehicle input include touchscreen input devices that combine input and display into a single screen, as well as voice-activated functions where the in-vehicle information system responds to voice commands. Examples of output systems include mechanical instrument gauges, output display panels, such as liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, and audio output devices that produce synthesized speech.
The benefit of replicating applications in the driver information system is that the applications can be specifically adapted to the car environment. For example, functionality can be reduced or limited, or the user interface of the application can be changed to be specifically targeted to the input controllers in the car. Applications in the mobile phone are not designed with use in the car in mind. Thus, such applications do not consider that the driver has to divert his attention from the driving task when operating the applications on the phone.
Nokia's remote control described in WO-2006067541 A1 is a phone remote control designed for the car environment. Nokia's in-vehicle information system is tightly integrated with a limited amount of functions of the phone. Only applications that were specifically designed with this technology in mind are able to make use of the remote controller functionality. Nokia's in-vehicle information system does not teach how to control an unlimited number of third party applications running on the phone or phones that were not built with this extension in mind.
State of the art technologies such as X Windows, Remote Desktop Protocol, and Virtual Network Computing make it possible to transmit the display content of one computer to another and enable remote control of any application that is running on the display-transmitting computer. A solution based on the same technology but specifically targeted towards mobile phones is Celio Technology Corporation's Redfly. Redfly transmits the phone's screen content to a portable terminal includes an external screen, keyboard and touchpad. In addition, the Redfly system increases the screen resolution of the phone to match the resolution of the external display. This enables phone applications to display more content on the external screen. All of the above-mentioned solutions transmit just the unmodified screen content to the screen of another device. Apart from a simple scaling or rotation operation, no content adjustment is performed. Advanced operations such as rearranging the screen or application layout or even filtering content to support a driver are not performed. Furthermore, none of the existing technologies teach how to integrate output from applications of the remote controlled computer to match the graphical representation of applications running on the controlling computer. In addition, user input on the controlling computer is simply sent back to the remote controlled device, and thus a simple 1:1 mapping is applied. That means compatible input devices, such as a mouse, must exist on both the remote controlled computer and the controlling computer.
State of the art technologies such as Johnson Controls' Bluetooth Mobile Device Gateway make it possible to transmit sensor information from the car to a portable navigation system which is connected using Bluetooth or USB. The portable navigation system processes the information and displays output on its own screen and loudspeaker. This technology is not intended for making the portable navigation system a “computing resource” for the car, as the results of the processing stays within the portable navigation system. Especially, the portable navigation is not intended to complement functionality offered by a driver information system available in the car. As an example, both the driver information system in the car and the portable navigation system have the ability to display a navigation map. There is no option of sharing the rendered map between the driver information system and the portable navigation system.
While existing systems enable some limited interaction between mobile electronic devices and in-vehicle information systems, the in-vehicle information systems are typically limited to providing a fixed set of functions and services that are implemented at the time of manufacture of the vehicle. For example, many in-vehicle information systems do not receive hardware and software upgrades during the life of the vehicle, and many vehicles have operating lifetimes of many years. Due to the physical implementation of the hardware and software components of an in-vehicle information system, traditional upgrades to these systems can be difficult to perform in an efficient manner. Consequently, improvements to the in-vehicle information systems that extend the functionality of the services provided to occupants in the vehicle while not requiring extensive modifications to the hardware and software in the vehicle would be beneficial.